Having had the adrenaline rush of almost killing some moron who thinks they can win a battle of momentum with a car, I’ve had a couple more thoughts.

Adrenaline – ask for it by name!

If you come to LA from another area where jaywalking is considered “normal,” either forget about that while you’re here or fill out your organ donor card. I know in New York City everyone was jaywalking everywhere, and Boston is worse. I don’t even want to think about what I saw throughout Shanghai! But here in LA the car is king and the drivers are morons. It seems that a certain central concept of jaywalking is the assumption that people have the ultimate right of way and of course the drivers will stop for you, even while they’re cussing you out. That’s an assumption that will put you in the ICU in Los Angeles.

I wonder how jaywalking will increase as more and more cars on the road are equipped with automatic, semi-autonomous braking systems? The drivers may not stop for a jaywalker in LA, but the cars might.

What percentage of cars on the road will have to have automatic braking systems before you’ll step off the curb in the middle of the street, oblivious to traffic, confident that something will stop the cars, either the car itself or a driver? 90%? 99%? 99.9999999%

That last point is the one I wonder about the most. The Law of Unintended Consequences!

If we make cars safer by putting in automated braking system, are we also breeding pedestrians to not look at traffic or care if it’s “safe” to cross the street?

Or is such a population of oblivious pedestrians self-limiting in size as Darwinian rules creep in?

Jeff Goldblum’s character in “Jurassic Park” said, “Life will always find a way” — so will death.